


At First Sight

by prairiecrow



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: First Kiss, Love at First Sight, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-04
Updated: 2012-10-04
Packaged: 2017-11-15 14:30:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garak remembers meeting Julian Bashir, several times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At First Sight

Garak remembered the first time he'd seen the boy's picture on a screen: up to his elbows in the Federation database through a back door he'd built into Terok Nor's systems years earlier, scanning the personnel files of the Starfleet officers recently assigned to the station now to be known as Deep Space Nine. He recalled staring at the small image for long moments, reflecting on how _unfinished_ Humans looked, with no ridges or scales to add character to their disarmingly plain faces… but that this particular Human, at least, appeared to have a rather lovely long neck.

He also remembered the first time he'd caught sight of Julian Bashir in the flesh from across the crowded Promenade, where he'd arranged to be at the precise moment the ship carrying the station's new CMO and CSO disgorged its passengers. He'd studied them with a sidelong gaze that appeared to be focussed elsewhere entirely, and had immediately realized that the newcomer was appallingly young and eager, radiating a desperately intense sexuality toward his Trill companion that was both amusing and a little dismaying to witness. Garak had instantly gotten a powerful sense of his character — relentlessly energetic, sensually avaricious, painfully callow — and had started to calculate the ways he could turn those impulsive passions to his personal advantage.

And then there'd been the moment he'd first met the Doctor in person. He'd been expecting the surprise and the interest: after all, word had gotten round that Bashir had been asking all sorts of pointed questions about the station's permanent inhabitants. What he hadn't expected was the stammering and the wide eyes, the shy glances away and the valiant attempts to be brave and straightforward in the face of _THE CARDASSIAN SPY_ — Garak could practically see the words printed across Bashir's forebrain, just like that, in capitals and italics. He hadn't expected such fascination, accompanied by the fluttering thrilled excitement of an ingenue being approached by an attractive older man… and in spite of himself, in spite of his training and his professionalism, he'd felt an answering glow of pleasure at being thus regarded. It had, after all, been so long since anyone had looked upon him with anything other than wariness, contempt, or indifference…

Julian had always been different from anyone Garak had ever met before, and never more so than in the instant he'd moved in, fugitive and quick as a _kalera_ deer, and stolen a kiss almost shyly, for all the world as if it hadn't always been his to take.

THE END


End file.
